Useless
by sapphire-child
Summary: A companion piece to Afraid To Try but from Claire’s POV. Claire didn’t like feeling useless.


Title: Useless  
Spoilers: up to the end of season two  
Summary: A companion piece to "Afraid To Try" but from Claire's POV. Claire didn't like feeling useless.  
Authors Notes: Okay so the layout for this one is quite a bit different to "Afraid To Try", its longer for one, and it focuses a lot more on Claire's relationship with her mother and Thomas pre-island and how it impacts on her decisions on the island.  
Dedication: for lily268 who prompted me to write this in the first place. Sorry it's taken so long to get out here m'dear!  
Disclaimer: I never said that I owned Lost, therefore you can't sue my ass. So there.

* * *

Claire didn't like feeling useless.

She'd always been fairly self-sufficient, ever since she was a little girl. After her father left, she had sung herself to sleep for years, cold, melancholy tears slipping out of her eyes as her small voice trembled on the words of her favourite lullaby. As she got older she became more and more autonomous. She had to learn to look after herself mostly, what with the long hours her mother worked. There were mishaps however. The first time she tried to cook dinner she had nearly burnt down the whole house. Her mother had been furious.

'Couldn't even wait for me to get home – what if you'd burned the house down – completely irresponsible…'

Claire had tingled with shame. 'I was only trying to help…'

'Well I think you've done enough helping for today,' Her mother said flatly, setting to work at scraping the charcoaled steaks off the bottom of her best frying pan. 'You'd better go and order a pizza or something Claire. The number is on the fridge…'

As soon as she had been able, Claire had gotten a job, that famous job at the Fish 'n' Fry, to help her mother with the rent. She worked herself hard there, her sunny disposition made her a favourite with customers and even though she wasn't supposed to accept tips, they found ways to slip them to her. Despite her steady (if small) income, her mother was most displeased with her career choice.

'Why couldn't you have gone to university like all your friends did?' she would sigh. 'I mean, for goodness sake, you're working in fast food Claire! Do you really think that there's a future for you at the Fish 'n' Fry?'

Her mother's disappointed bearing down on her, Claire continued to work and it was through her work that she first met Thomas. He was several years older than her but she liked him immediately. He seemed to understand about her need for validation and he made a point of showing her that she was in no way useless, like her mother had said.

It was the longest five months of her life after Thomas left her, dodging Richard Malkin who seemed to want to do exactly what Thomas had tried – make her think she was worth something. But she knew that she was useless and nothing could shake that feeling for her now. Why else would Thomas have left her? Why else would her mother think that she was good for nothing? She'd tried and failed so many times. And even when she did think it was all working out, something would happen to screw it all up.

She decided to give up the baby.

_I don't care. Somebody else can have this stupid baby – I certainly don't want it._

She wasn't entirely sure why she couldn't go through with the adoption at the last moment. She had been so _certain_ that this wasn't what she wanted – she couldn't take care of a baby! She had nothing. No idea of how to take care of it, how she would feed it or clothe it. She had no job, no family to turn to. She had isolated all her friends…

But a small part of her still yearned to see if she could do it. What if this was the _one thing_ she could do right? What if she gave her baby away and regretted it for the rest of her life? She had gone to Malkin, certain that he would tell her once again that she needed to raise her baby – that it was fate and all that crap he had come out with before. Instead she found herself admittedly disappointed when he told her he'd found a couple that were suitable to adopt her baby. Her ego deflated – she was useless again. She took the ticket he gave her and boarded a flight to Los Angeles on the 22nd of September – her father's birthday, wherever the hell he was now.

She had been terrified when the plane went down, her hands held fast over her swollen belly. When she awoke to the agonising pain of the contractions, the first thought that came into her mind was: what if the baby got hurt in the crash? If the baby died it would be her fault again.

Charlie was the first person to make her smile for a long time. He made her feel that even if she couldn't take of herself perfectly, at least she was doing her damndest. Suddenly her best efforts seemed even better and she found her independence and her confidence growing again.

_I don't feel like such a failure anymore,_ she scribbled in her diary one afternoon. _I think maybe I can do this – raise my baby and all. Well…maybe with a bit of help from Charlie too!_

Her kidnapping and captivity had remained a hazy blur for the longest time – making her feel foolish again. Baiting Ethan gave her a purpose for about three seconds but from there on her limited mobility worked to her disadvantage. She grew very attached to Charlie in the time between her return and when she gave birth – he genuinely seemed to enjoy her company and made her feel better about herself. Until the day that Aaron was stolen. The feeling of uselessness all came rushing back in one fell swoop, making her feel sick with guilt.

_I should have taken better care of him. I should have been able to fight back. God – what kind of mother am I? I can't even protect my own son…_

She might have been upset that Charlie had proven to be a better parent than her – if she hadn't been so pleased to have her son returned to her completely unharmed. Charlie however seemed to leap right into the role of parent – filling it far more adequately, and far quicker than Claire was. She was jealous of his abilities, that he was stealing her role.

'You're not his father! You're not his family!' Charlie had yelled at John and he had been quite right. But Charlie was unbalanced – seeing things, sleepwalking, possibly on drugs…Claire couldn't have someone like that around her baby. No, this time she was going to protect him and she didn't care what Charlie or Jack or anybody said. This was _her_ baby dammit, and for once she was going to do her job right and she was going to take care of him without help from outside sources.

She had been shocked to regain the memories of her captivity, almost a month after she had been returned. She couldn't believe that she'd almost given her baby up a second time – and to people who had nearly killed Charlie as well. Despite her less than sympathetic feelings towards the man, she felt uncomfortable with the fact that he had given so much to keep her – and her baby – safe.

She couldn't quite bring herself to forgive him because of it. He'd brought her up and down like a yo-yo without even realising – his overzealous parenting skills bringing her own insecurities to the fore again and again without even meaning to.

It was this own, personal revelation that allowed Claire to accept his tentative attempt to win back at least a bit of her favour. She had been genuinely touched by the way he had come to her with the vaccine before anyone else – even Jack. And he had even tested it on himself first. She couldn't see herself doing the same for him in her current frame of mind but instead of making her bitter again, she realised that she wanted to be able to sacrifice that much for him too.

It wasn't just Aaron that she wanted to protect. Whether it be maternal instinct or something else, Claire began to feel an irresistible need to reach out to Charlie again and after a lot of deliberating and inner debating, she finally reached out and touched him for the first time in nearly a fortnight.

His touch was exactly the way she remembered it, warm and gentle with a touch of hesitancy. It felt the same as when he had supported her lower back when she was pregnant, the same as the time he had reached out a tender hand to brush a strand of her hair back from her face so that she could focus her attentions entirely on her son and not her flyaway curls…

It felt the same when she kissed him the next day. She wasn't the perfect mother – she knew that. Charlie wasn't a perfect man – she knew that too. But when he smiled at her, a little shy, a little hesitant, warm and gentle, she felt like she might have finally found at least some small purpose. She already knew that she was meant to take care of Aaron – she knew now that she could do it alone at the very least. But now she wanted to take care of Charlie too – Lord knows he needed it.

He needed her.

He loved her.

She wasn't useless.

And in that moment when their lips met, all her remaining fears and doubts finally fell away.


End file.
